It could be even more difficult because, some analysts said, the weightiest factors in the recent base budget growth have been personnel-related costs, including pay increases above the employment cost index and Congress’s approval of both expanded and new benefits. With the recent influx of veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, that cost share has grown increasingly unwieldy, as health care accounts for about 9 percent of defense spending, roughly $53 billion per year.
Todd Harrison, a senior fellow in defense budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, called the proposed $5 per month bump in premiums for working-age military retirees, to $520 for families, “pretty modest” but likely to further curb Pentagon costs by encouraging veterans to access health care through their current employers.